Tracy Starts CART Season With Victory

Published 6:00 pm, Sunday, February 23, 2003

Paul Tracy gave his new team a lot of extra work during the offseason when he insisted on a switch from Reynard to Lola chassis.

The choice and the work paid off for Team Player's on Sunday as the 34-year-old Canadian drove to a dominant win in the inaugural St. Petersburg Grand Prix.

"This took a lot of money and a lot of effort," Tracy said. "This win is a kind of payback to the team for that."

Other big name drivers have left the CART Champ Car World Series for the rival Indy Racing League, which races only on ovals. But Tracy has never wavered from his goal of winning a championship in the series run on ovals, road courses and temporary street circuits such as the 1.806-mile, 14-turn course in downtown St. Petersburg.

His first priority was to get off to a fast start in the points.

The winningest active driver in Champ Cars, Tracy earned his 20th victory in the season-opening race. More important, he came away with 21 points _ 20 for winning the race and one for leading a race-high 71 of 105 laps.

"I am usually a slow starter," Tracy said. "Normally it takes me four or five races to get a point, and you're 60-70 points behind by then."

Not this year.

After taking the checkered flags, Tracy celebrated with a series of smoking doughnuts. Moments later, though, his voice was calm and cool as he keyed his radio and said, "Great job guys. We got off on the right foot."

Tracy started alongside rookie pole-winner Sebastien Bourdais on the front row of the 19-car field and trailed the Frenchman and another first-year driver, Tiago Monteiro of Portugal, though the first 34 laps.

After being held up by the slower Montiero for a number of laps, getting madder and madder, Tracy drove past and into the lead on lap 35. Tracy stayed in front the rest of the way.

In 12 years, Tracy has finished as high as third in the points three times. It's only the first of 19 races in 2003, but leading after the opener is a big boost to him and his new team.

"It's where we really wanted to be," he said. "It's where I wanted to be. I couldn't be any happier."

Tracy will take the points lead into the next race, March 23 in Monterrey, Mexico. But, as big as Sunday's win was, with his history, Tracy is taking nothing for granted.

"I hope we don't fall on our faces next race," he said, grimacing. "I've won just about everything, but not a championship."

Michel Jourdain Jr. finished second, but never challenged for the lead and was 12.136 seconds _ several hundred yards _ behind Tracy at the end.

Bruno Junqueira was third despite losing ground when his crew had trouble with his right rear tire on his first pit stop and then had late-race brake problems.

Junqueira, second in last year's championship to Cristiano da Matta _ now in Formula One _ was followed by Mario Haberfeld, the best finisher among nine rookies.

Roberto Moreno, who had no ride last year and, at 44, the oldest driver in the field, finished fifth, the last driver on the lead lap.

It was a strong start for CART's top series, which has struggled through two years of losing top drivers, teams and manufacturers before getting things going in the right direction late last season.

Aside from all the new faces among the drivers, there were five new teams on the grid Sunday. The Mi-Jack Conquest team, owned by former driver Eric Bachelart and Mike Lanigan, was the top finisher among the new teams, with Haberfeld at the wheel.

It's sister team and another newcomer, Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing, was close behind with Monteiro finishing seventh, just behind Jimmy Vasser, the top American in the field.

Bourdais, so impressive in winning the pole, led the first 30 laps. When the other leaders pitted under caution on lap 16, the Frenchman stayed on the track.

Bourdais, last year's Formula 3000 champion, built a lead of nearly 13 seconds before he finally made his first stop on lap 30. By the time Bourdais returned to the track, Monteiro was on top.

Bourdais had trouble getting up to speed on the slick track and was passed by Tracy and his Player's teammate Patrick Carpentier. As the rookie pushed to stay with the veterans, he brushed one of the concrete walls lining part of the twisting circuit. That broke the left rear suspension and flattened the tire on his Lola, send him to the pits and costing him eight laps.

Junqueira's new teammate hung in to finish 11th, thanks to high attrition.

The top 12 finishers get championship points and that's how many cars were running at the end, with 12th-place Oriol Servia nine laps behind.

Carpentier slammed into a tire wall on lap 48, lost two laps while repairs were made and finished eighth.

Among the drivers who failed to finish were Alex Tagliani, who crashed into a tire wall on the third lap, and Alex Fernandez, running 10th and on the lead lap when he was hit by fellow Mexican Mario Dominguez. The damage ended the race for both drivers.